Other communal institutions in Kiev also experienced various forms of democratization after 1905, lasting for longer or shorter periods. The Society for the Care of Poor Jewish Artisans and Workers of Kiev, for example, was founded in the last decades of the nineteenth century as a branch of the Representation for Jewish Welfare. In 1906, it gained its independence and, as its annual report explained, participated with other "progressive social groups" in demanding reform of the Representation; namely, sound representation and just distribution of the meat tax proceeds.191 The goals enumerated in its charter included the intellectual improvement of Kiev's Jewish artisans, as well as their moral and material betterment, and the charter provided for the establishment of a number of institutions oriented toward self-help and education, such as vocational bureaus, schools, and savings and pension funds. These were in addition to the traditional establishments providing assistance of a more temporary nature, such as almshouses (bogadel’ni ).192 (The following year, recognizing that one-time monetary assistance was not sufficient in and of itself, the board created a special commission for reorganization to figure out which additional types of aid the society should provide.)193 at the same time, the society's board tried to attract a large number of artisans as members in an attempt to achieve "democratization," while acknowledging that it also needed to attract well-to-do members in order to grow. The society's membership did indeed expand dramatically, from 134 to 273, half of whom were "supporting members," a category created in 1905 so that artisans and workers could join as full members (notwithstanding the appellation) for only 1 ruble a year.194 Five artisans had also been recruited to sit on the board alongside wealthy and middle-class members.
The annual report for 1906 was composed in the revolutionary spirit of the day, voicing disapproval of the current "conditions of State life" (i. e., the social and political order); the establishment of a loan fund, it declared, was especially significant "for those who view private philanthropy as a necessary evil under the present social order, which does away with human dignity." The report took jabs at both the Russian government's policies and the indifference of the Kiev Jewish elite, intimating that the bitter circumstances in Kiev would not improve until Russian Jews received equal rights, for those Jews living in the city with full rights would remain unsympathetic to the rightless Jews. It concluded by looking forward to the day when the Kiev Jewish community would "display responsiveness to its blood-brothers-laborers [svoim rodnympo krovibrafiam-truzhennikam]."195
Despite these promising changes, the next year supporting members had dropped to just 20 percent of the total, suggesting that once the original enthusiasm had worn off, many artisans saw little reason to maintain their membership, or perhaps economic circumstances were so dire that they felt they could not even afford the 1 ruble. However, the number of artisans on the board had doubled to ten.196 As OPE board member L. Dynin wrote in 1908, most of the members present at the general meeting were artisans, while those of the intelligentsia were mostly absent; at the same time, most board members were nonartisans (twenty-six out of thirty-six).197 The annual report appealed to the membership at large for its participation, or perhaps its financial assistance, noting that "only with the concerted [or amicable] cooperation [druzhnaia rabota] of the members of the society will its high and humane ideals be realized."198 Overall, this story suggests that after the exhilaration of the revolution had passed, it was difficult to maintain working-class participation in philanthropic organizations, even those that were intended to support and provide a voice for laborers. The active support of middle-class intelligenty continued to be crucial in the day-to-day workings of bodies like the Society for the Care of Poor Jewish Artisans and Workers.
The next year, the board announced that it was preparing to establish a girls' vocational school and a tailoring school for both sexes, and would prepare plans to found a technical school for artisans (remeslennyi muzei). The fact that vocational training would be made available to girls was important, since the only Jewish trade school in Kiev, the Brodsky School, was for boys only.199 Perhaps it is not by chance that this working-class organization proposed to fill a crucial gap left by an institution established by Kiev's Jewish plutocrats.
We do not have a great deal of evidence about traditional hevrot in Kiev, but the pinkas of Hevrat magidei tehilim shel Kiev (Kiev Hevra for the Recitation of Psalms)—formed by worshipers at the Rozenberg (Shchekavitskaia Street) prayer house in Kiev—provides a tantalizing glimpse of the lives of pious working-class Jews. The record book, which covers the years 56555676 (1895-1916), shows that this hevra, and probably others like it, was not focused exclusively on its religious mission but also served as a primitive mutual aid society, the dues providing members with access to loans, medicines, and burial services.200 A study of the pinkas shows that the members had at least basic literacy in Hebrew, since the regulations required each new member to read the takanot (regulations) in full, but on the other hand the many mistakes in the Hebrew reveal that they were not "particularly learned."201 The pinkas also reveals not only that the leadership of the hevra "was not entirely open," but that there was actually a leadership clique, members of which were elected repeatedly to various posts. This was standard practice for hevrot in traditional Jewish society. Moreover the hevra did not hold elections every year as stipulated in the takanot.202 Given what we have seen about how Jewish organizations tended to function before the revolutionary years, perhaps such hevrot were mostly unaffected by the transformations in acculturated Jewish society, and their members were happy to carry on with the oligarchic leadership that had existed since the society's founding. On the other hand, the pinkas does not reveal if there were internal disputes or even resignations from the hevra because of differences over leadership and power sparked by upheavals in other Jewish institutions. If the examples of Kiev's prayer houses are any guide, then such disputes were more than likely.
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